So this is a subject that is close to my heart. I have been mulling it over in my head for a while and if you read other blogs (specifically Mirror Mirror) I have talked about it there. I was reminded of it again this week when I was fairly critical out loud about myself and was told to be kinder. So my question to you is, how often do you actually listen to what you are saying, pull yourself up, and tell yourself to shut up? Personally, I don't do it often enough, and my challenge to you this week is to listen to yourself and take note of how often you speak negativity over yourself instead of positivity. If I was actually to count, I would be horrified. If a person in my life was to walk up to me and say some of the things that I say to myself, I would be upset, devastated even. I would be hurt and angry, so why is it okay for me to speak to myself that way? Do I actually value myself so little that I feel that constantly speaking that over my life is acceptable?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with self reflection. It is actually good to look at what we do, what we say, and how we live and work through the areas that need improvement. It is when the self reflection turns from, "I am going to write that down next time" to "I am an idiot. I can't remember a thing. I am so stupid" that it becomes a problem. What that does is not only focus on the negative, but it doesn't give any option to reflect and improve it. "I am going to start writing things down" is a positive step that I can take to improve that particular area of my life. "I am an idiot and I am stupid" is neither helpful nor constructive. It doesn't move me forward and it gives other people permission to treat me that way if they continually hear me say it. When you are constantly speaking failure over your life, it is really hard to have a positive mindset. It can become difficult to see that you have an exciting future when all you see is the negative parts of yourself. It is easy to transition from "I am a stupid idiot" to "I am not worth anything" to "of course that situation went wrong, why would anything good happen to me". It is also really easy to allow the pattern you have set for how you treat yourself to become the way that you allow others to treat you. These are dangerous mindsets that set the tone for all aspects of our life.

The biggest thing I struggle with is calling myself stupid/moron/idiot/bimbo. I have really been thinking about it this week and trying to work out why I do that. In my previous blogs, I have mentioned my medical problems - the seizures in particular that I need to take medication for. The medication essentially slows your brain down so that it doesn't get overwhelmed. While it has been fantastic in stopping seizures, it is definitely not great for processing things quickly, coming up with the right words when I need them and general memory. I find it frustrating and embarrassing, so I either call my self stupid because I have used the wrong word, or struggled to remember something, or I do it to get in front of the fact that I might screw up. You know, if I just insult myself first, then people won't laugh and think I am an idiot. What I have realised while thinking about why I do this, is that the problem has been magnified in my head. By constantly saying that stuff out load and drawing attention to it, I have become hyper sensitive about it, hyper aware of it, and super self conscious. What is actually a quirk that I really can't help has become a massive thing for me. I wonder how much of that is due to the amount of times I draw attention to it and reinforce it out loud. Imagine if I started saying positive things and continually working on improving the things I can help. For example, if I consistently used my diary, I might not have such a hard time remembering things and even if I did forget, it would be written down.

Someone once said to me, "if we only realised how little people actually think about us, we wouldn't worry anywhere near as much about what people think". Basically, it is referring to the fact that people have their own stuff and the things we are self conscious or beating ourselves up about are very rarely on other people's minds. They are too busy stressing about their own things. If we could stop obsessing over everything that we perceive to be wrong with us, it might give us a chance to own our future and chase the dreams God has given us.

The more that I am aware of the way that I speak about myself, the more I am aware of the need to turn that speech around. If you struggle in this area, I would recommend reading through Psalm 139. This passage talks about how intimately God knows us, how he knit us together. Verse 14 says: 'I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well'. It becomes difficult to declare over your life one second how fearfully and wonderfully you are made, while the next second expressing how stupid, fat, ugly, and worthless you are. We all have different areas that we struggle with in regards to self image but Psalm 139 is a great place to start with declaring God's truths. When you catch yourself going down the path of speaking negatively, start declaring the words of this Psalm.

So this week, count the times you insult yourself and then start trying to change that pattern. I would not let anyone speak to my family the way that I speak to myself. To break the pattern we really need to start seeing ourselves as the amazing people that we are, start declaring the positives over ourselves, working on the weaknesses and telling that negative voice to just shut up - because no-one wants to hear what it has to say.